Thomas was last seen near 5th and Nebraska Streets in Peru, Nebraska on December 3, 2010. She had left a party off-campus and was walking towards her dormitory room at Peru State College. She was last seen near the town water tower, only a few hundred feet from her dormitory, but she apparently never made it inside. Right before she disappeared, Tyler sent a text message to a friend saying she didn't know where she was. She has never been heard from again. She was reported missing at 3:00 a.m., an hour and a half after he was last seen. The temperature outside that night was in the teens and Thomas wasn't wearing a coat. She had drunk beer and several shots of tequila at the party.

Within days, fellow Peru student Joshua Keadle was named as a person of interest in Thomas's disappearance. They had gone on a date once, but Thomas didn't like Keadle and told others she wanted to avoid him. On December 9, six days after she went missing, he was arrested for evidence tampering and providing false information to the police. A photo of Keadle is posted below this case summary. Several days later, he was charged with felony rape and false imprisonment after another woman told police he had sexually assaulted her three times on October 31, a month before Thomas disappeared. Keadle, who is more than twice his alleged victim's weight, reportedly threatened to throw the woman in the Missouri River if she did not consent to sex acts. If convicted, he faces up to 150 years in prison. Keadle pleaded not guilty and claimed the encounter was consensual and she accused him because he refused to pay her for sex. He has a prior record for theft; in 2009 he pleaded guilty to stealing a woman's purse and was ordered to pay a fine and restitution. He was also charged with sex crimes in two other cases, but the charges were dropped because the victims refused to cooperate. After his rape arrest in December, authorities in Madison County, Nebraska charged him with indecent exposure; he allegedly exposed him to a woman in Norfolk, Nebraska in April.

Keadle, a junior sports management major from South Carolina who had studied at several other colleges in Nebraska, at first told the police that he'd seen Thomas walking down the street on the night of her disappearance but didn't speak to her. Later he said she'd gotten in his car, he drove her to the Peru Boat Dock on the Missouri River, they had a consensual sexual encounter and then she accused him of raping her. He said they had a verbal and physical argument and then he left her on the dock at 2:00 a.m., returned to his dormitory room and took a shower. The dock by the river is the same place where the alleged October 31 rape started, and both the October incident and Thomas's disappearance happened in the early hours of the morning.

After Keadle gave his second statement about Thomas, authorities checked the dock and found tire tracks, consistent with Keadle's 1996 Ford Explorer, near the riverbank. There were also drag marks leading from the tire tracks down the bank to the river's edge.

Thomas's loved ones never believed she left of her own accord, because she left behind her purse and coat and she was not having any problems in her life. She was happy at college and had joined the dance team. She lived in Bellevue, Nebraska when she was not at school. Although he has not faced charges in Thomas's disappearance, Keadle remains the primary focus of the investigation. He has been suspended from Peru State College and is jailed awaiting trial on the rape charges. Thomas's disappearance is unsolved and foul play is suspected.

Above: Joshua Keadle